What are the benefits of “String”.equals(otherString)

Question

in a tutorial (for implementing a xml parser) i saw the following code:

if( \"NODENAME\".equals(xmlreader.getNodeName()) ) {  // getNodeName() returns java.l         


        

Answer 1

If you have the impression that you could also compare the Strings using == then it would fail even if in the comparison would be involved two "meaningfully" equal String, since == checks if it is the same Object. Of course, as the other answers state, you avoid a NullPointeException if you call equals on a standard String, as in your question.